On October 8, 2025, a flurry of headlines out of the United States sent ripples through the worlds of science, finance, and politics, capturing the attention of international observers and sparking spirited debate. As reported by Swiss media outlets and corroborated by major news organizations, the week’s events ranged from the celebration of groundbreaking scientific achievement to pointed criticism of US policy and renewed anxieties about the tone of American political discourse.
Perhaps the brightest spot in an otherwise turbulent week was the announcement of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry. This year’s award, the third Nobel honor revealed so far in 2025, went to three scientists—Susumu Kitagawa from Kyoto University in Japan, Richard Robson from the University of Melbourne in Australia, and Omar M. Yaghi from the University of California, Berkeley in the United States. According to the Nobel Prize committee, their pioneering work led to the creation of metal-organic frameworks, or MOFs, a class of molecular structures that has transformed the way scientists approach everything from environmental clean-up to energy storage.
MOFs, as described by the committee, are built from metal nodes and polydentate organic ligands, forming vast networks with “large cavities in which molecules can flow in and out.” As Heiner Linke, chair of the Nobel Committee for Chemistry, colorfully put it, “The small amount of material is like Hermione’s handbag in Harry Potter”—tiny on the outside, but capable of storing an enormous amount inside. Since the initial discoveries by Kitagawa, Robson, and Yaghi, chemists worldwide have designed tens of thousands of MOFs, finding applications in extracting carbon dioxide from the air, removing persistent pollutants from water, and even breaking down trace pharmaceuticals in the environment.
On a call with journalists during the Nobel announcement, Kitagawa expressed both humility and hope for the future. He said he was “deeply honoured and delighted” by the award, but emphasized a larger vision: “My dream is to pull elements from the air and use them to help power renewable energy sources. This is quite important for our society and also our planet.” The trio’s achievement follows a long tradition of Nobel innovation—since 1901, 116 chemistry prizes have been awarded, with only eight going to women, including the legendary Marie Curie. Last year’s chemistry prize, for example, recognized advances in artificial intelligence models for protein structure prediction and novel approaches to protein design.
Yet, even as the scientific community celebrated, a very different story was unfolding in the realm of US science policy. According to Le Temps and Swissinfo, John Clarke, one of this year’s Nobel Prize-winning physicists, delivered a blunt assessment of the current climate for research in the United States. “Donald Trump’s efforts to transform the scientific landscape in the United States are an ‘immensely serious problem’,” Clarke told AFP, warning that recent policy changes were “paralysing” science. Since Trump’s return to the White House in January 2025, the administration has enacted drastic cuts in research funding and overseen the mass firing of scientists from federal agencies.
Clarke, who shares the Nobel honor for discoveries in quantum mechanics, reflected on the resources available during his own research career. “This is going to paralyse a large part of scientific research in the United States,” he said, noting that colleagues had already seen their funding slashed. He added, “It will be disastrous if this continues. Assuming the current government finally comes to an end, it could take a decade to get back to where we were six months ago.” Several Nobel officials echoed Clarke’s concerns, warning that the US risks losing its historic position as a global leader in scientific research, with potential ramifications for the broader international community—including scientific institutions in Switzerland.
Meanwhile, the financial world was abuzz with news of gold’s meteoric rise. As reported by the Tages-Anzeiger in Zurich, the price of gold broke through the $4,000 per troy ounce barrier for the first time ever on October 7, 2025, representing a 50% increase since the start of the year. While some investors cheered the milestone, the Swiss daily cautioned that the surge was less a sign of prosperity than a reflection of deepening uncertainty, inflation, and geopolitical tension. “One key trigger is Donald Trump’s erratic policies, which are upsetting the global markets. His trade wars with high punitive tariffs are causing uncertainty and fuelling fears of inflation,” the paper wrote. Trump’s repeated attacks on the Federal Reserve and its chairman Jerome Powell have also contributed to market anxiety, with the administration’s pursuit of a weaker dollar prompting investors to seek shelter in gold.
But is now the time to buy? The Tages-Anzeiger offered a measured perspective: “Anything that rises sharply can also fall quickly. The ‘safe haven’ is heavily dependent on current events and future expectations and is correspondingly volatile.” Thorsten Hens, a finance professor at the University of Zurich, advised that “even at $4,000, gold belongs in your portfolio,” but cautioned investors to build their positions gradually to avoid overpaying.
Beyond the headlines about science and finance, the Swiss media also turned their gaze to the political climate in the United States, raising the specter of a return to McCarthyism. In a feature for Swiss public radio SRF, historian Olaf Stieglitz drew parallels between the aggressive rhetoric of the Trump era and the infamous Red Scare of the 1950s, when Senator Joseph McCarthy led a campaign of accusations, blacklists, and political repression. “It’s about these accusations without verification, about slander, about denunciation,” Stieglitz told SRF, citing Trump’s repeated claims that the Democratic Party is radical left-wing or that Antifa is a terrorist organization. “These are accusations that overstep the mark. But if you keep repeating them, they become entrenched. It’s very reminiscent of the rhetorical strategies of the McCarthy era.”
However, Stieglitz was careful to note important differences. While the rhetoric may echo the past, today’s American society is not as primed for friend-or-foe thinking as it was during and after World War II. He also pointed out that accusations of McCarthyist tactics have been leveled at both sides of the political spectrum, including recent claims against the Biden administration over alleged censorship and cancel culture. “This term is common—everyone associates something with it. It’s now so omnipresent that it can be used by any side,” Stieglitz observed. Still, he concluded, “the tone in the US is not only becoming rougher, but also more undemocratic.”
As the week’s headlines demonstrate, the United States remains a nation of contrasts—celebrating scientific ingenuity while wrestling with political and economic turbulence. The Nobel laureates in chemistry and physics will receive their prizes at a ceremony in Sweden this December, a reminder that, even in uncertain times, discovery and debate continue to shape the world’s future.
